Vice Presidents of the Republic
The Vice Presidents of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the Republic Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the Republic, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term. The Vice President is the first person in the presidential line of succession, ascending to the Presidency upon the death, resignation, or removal of the President. Under the Constitution, the Vice President is President of the Senate. In that capacity, he is only allowed to vote in the Senate when necessary to break a tied vote. While Senate customs have created supermajority rules that have diminished this Constitutional power, the Vice President still retains the ability to affect legislation. Pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment, the Vice President presides over the joint session of Congress when it convenes to count the vote of the Electoral College. While the Vice President's only constitutionally prescribed functions, aside from Presidential succession, relate to his role as President of the Senate, the office is commonly viewed as a member of the executive branch of the federal government. The Constitution does not expressly assign the office to any one branch, causing scholars to dispute whether it belongs to the executive branch, the legislative branch, or both. The modern view of the vice president as a member of the executive branch is due in part to the assignment of executive duties to the vice president by either the president or Congress, though such activities are only recent historical developments. Origin The creation of the office of Vice President was a direct consequence of the Electoral College. Delegates to the Lay Convention gave each state a number of presidential electors equal to that state's combined share of House and Senate seats. Yet the delegates were worried that each elector would only favor his own state's favorite son candidate, resulting in deadlocked elections that would produce no winners. To counter this presumed difficulty, the delegates gave each presidential elector two votes, required at least one of those votes be for a candidate from outside the elector's state, and mandated that the winner of the election obtain an absolute majoritywith respect to the total number of electors. With these rules in place, the delegates hoped each electors' second vote would go to a statesman of national character. However, fearing electors might throw away their second vote to bolster their favorite son's chance of winning, the Philadelphia delegates specified that the runner-up in the election would become Vice President. Creating this new office imposed a political cost on discarded votes, and thus required electors staidly cast their second ballots. Roles of the Vice President The Constitution limits the formal powers and role of Vice President to becoming President should the President become unable to serve (due to the death, resignation, or medical impairment of the President), prompting the well-known expression "only a heartbeat away from the Presidency", and to acting as the presiding officer of the Senate. See also *List of Vice Presidents of the Republic